Given its prevalence today, it may be hard to imagine a time when blacktop wasn\u2019t used for just about every roadway, driveway, and parking lot.<\/p>\n
Over the course of hundreds of years, however, asphalt evolved and rose to become the popular paving material that we now know it to be.<\/p>\n
Keep reading to learn a little more about the history of asphalt paving!<\/p>\n
Although asphalt paving might seem like a fairly modern invention, asphalt has been used in various forms for millennia. In fact, the ancient Mesopotamians used different kinds of asphalt for waterproofing purposes.<\/p>\n
The first use of actual asphalt paving can be traced back to roadways in 625 B.C. Babylon.<\/p>\n
Despite asphalt existing for hundreds of years prior, it wasn\u2019t until the 19 century when a method similar to what would become traditional blacktop started being used for roadway paving.<\/p>\n
Thomas Telford and his contemporary, John Loudon McAdam, are credited with using a mixture of crushed stone for roadways throughout Scotland\u2014a method that would later become known as tar-and-chip, chip seal, or macadam.<\/p>\n
Decades after different forms of asphalt paving had already been used in other countries, blacktop finally arrived in the United States.<\/p>\n
The Belgian-American chemist Edmund J. De Smedt is credited with having paved the first modern asphalt roadway in Newark, New Jersey in 1870.<\/p>\n
It should come as no surprise that the rise of the asphalt paving industry coincided with the popularization of automobiles in the early 1900s.<\/span><\/p>\n The first asphalt manufacturing plant was established in 1901, and different types of paving machinery followed. As traffic increased, the demand for high-quality asphalt roads also increased. By the year 1937, roughly 80% of all roads in the U.S. were blacktop.<\/p>\n In 1956, the asphalt paving industry took a monumental step forward when Congress committed $51 billion to building new roads through the Interstate Highways Act.<\/p>\n This not only accelerated the building of asphalt roads across the country but also revolutionized interstate travel.<\/p>\n Today, it\u2019s estimated that there are more than 2.6 million miles of asphalt-paved roads in the United States alone!<\/p>\n It\u2019s also worth noting that asphalt mixtures have evolved significantly over time. As of 2002, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) no longer considers asphalt to be a hazardous pollutant. In fact, it is now the United States\u2019 most recycled product with over 70 million tons recycled and reused every year.<\/p>\n Are you considering asphalt as a paving material for your parking lot, driveway, or roadway?<\/a> Contact<\/a> the team at Danny\u2019s Asphalt Paving<\/a> today. One of our experts would be happy to discuss your project and provide you with a free estimate for the work!<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How did asphalt become one of the most common paving materials in the world? Given its prevalence today, it may be hard to imagine a time when blacktop wasn\u2019t used for just about every roadway, driveway, and parking lot. Over the course of hundreds of years, however, asphalt evolved and rose to become the popular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.goonlinemarketing.com\/dannys-asphalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.goonlinemarketing.com\/dannys-asphalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.goonlinemarketing.com\/dannys-asphalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.goonlinemarketing.com\/dannys-asphalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.goonlinemarketing.com\/dannys-asphalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272613"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/demo.goonlinemarketing.com\/dannys-asphalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272616,"href":"https:\/\/demo.goonlinemarketing.com\/dannys-asphalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272613\/revisions\/272616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.goonlinemarketing.com\/dannys-asphalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.goonlinemarketing.com\/dannys-asphalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.goonlinemarketing.com\/dannys-asphalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.goonlinemarketing.com\/dannys-asphalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1950s: The Asphalt Paving Industry Explodes<\/h2>\n
Modern Day: Asphalt Is a Common, Safe, and Environmentally Friendly Paving Material<\/h2>\n